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Is Childhood Abuse Affecting Your Relationships?

Relationships with your loved ones may be impacted by your childhood abuse experience.

Child abuse is the physical, sexual, or emotional mistreatment or neglect of a child or children. Eventually, the child becomes an adult. While childhood abuse does not define a person, it can creep it's way into our relationships without knowing.

Meet Carrie. She is this amazing mother of 4 who has been married for 22 years. Carrie came into therapy because she was having a disagreement with her teenage daughter and could not figure out how to navigate these troubled waters. We spent time getting to know each other, identifying the problems, and narrowing treatment goals through assessment. During this phase I asked the question, "Who does your daugther remind you of?" Carrie sat quietly, contemplating this question. She then said, "She reminds me of my mother. When she yells at me, I feel like I'm a little girl all over again trying to talk to my mom and get her to understand." This was a huge clue as to where our work should begin. Carrie stated, "I haven't thought about all of that stuff for years."

Abuse experiences can remain dormant until something triggers them. Then, because that memory has been dormant for so long, a person may have no idea why they are being triggered or where the triggers are coming from. This conversation led me to identify a few questions people can ask themselves to see if they need further help with past issues:

Is there a dynamic that occurs between you and your loved one over and over that bothers you?

Do you find certain behaviors in your loved ones that cause you to feel defensive or easily angry?

What do these situations remind you of?

Who were involved in these memories?

Where can you go to reach out, get support, and seek some help?

The last question is the most important. If you are being triggered by interactions with your loved ones, seek professional help and guidance by finding a local mental health therapist or psychologist. Navigating these waters alone can be troubling and cause you to be distraught.

Every person deserves to live in the moment and enjoy their life. Don't let the past trip you up. Reflect, evaluate, seek help when needed, work through the feelings and memories, and move forward. You are a survivor!

1. Mister Albert in 'The Color Purple'

After abusing wife Celie in every imaginable way (including isolating her from her beloved sister and making her fix up his gross living conditions and troll kids), Mister Albert moves his mistress into their house and makes Celie her servant. Perhaps the only bigger monster is Celie's stepfather, who gave her away to Mister Albert.

Photo: IMDB

2. Sheba Hart in 'Notes On A Scandal'

Good wives typically don't have sex with men other than their husbands, who are left home to take care of their kids (one of whom is disabled). Good wives also don't cheat on said husbands with boys. Who are underage. And their students. Seriously, if the genders were reversed in this, the world would have really been flipping out.

Photo: IMDB

3. Carlo Rizzi in 'The Godfather'

Carlo only married his wife, Connie, in hopes of taking over her family business. He also abuses her. Like, a lot.

Photo: IMDB

4. Ginger in 'Casino'

Ginger steals from her husband to fund and fuel her gambling and drug addictions. She also cheats on him with his business partner and at one point ties their daughter to her bed so she can go clubbing. Classy!

Photo: IMDB

5. Humbert Humbert in 'Lolita'

Generally, a good husband doesn't marry you just to leave you dead, then kidnap and continually rape your underage daughter. Just, you know, a rule of thumb.

6. Cora Smith in 'The Postman Always Rings Twice'

7. Earl Hunterson in 'Waitress'

Where do we begin with this one? Jenna has to initially hide her pregnancy from Earl Hunterson, which is generally never a good sign. She also hides some money from him to escape his controlling, sociopathic ways. He also threatens, once he does learn of her pregnancy, that she better not love their baby more than she loves him, and that he wants to use her money to get a Camcorder to make sex videos with her ... but only if she loses the baby weight. What a catch!

Photo: IMDB

8. Lenore in 'Taken' and 'Taken 2'

Famke Janssen's Lenore is still a b*tch to Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills even after he saves their family members from being abducted not once, but twice. Her particular set of skills apparently doesn't include being gracious.

Photo: IMDB

9. Jack Torrance in 'The Shining'

After lying about why he's in a remote Colorado hotel that may or may not contain ghosts that have sex with furries, Jack Torrance tries to murder his wife and child. Hot.

Photo: IMDB

10. Rose DeWitt Bukater in 'Titanic'

Everyone thinks Titanic is some great love story, but it's ultimately about an engaged woman who cheats on her fiancee with a broke dude, then lets the broke dude freeze to death in the ocean. Wonderful.

Photo: IMDB

11. Ennis Del Mar in 'Brokeback Mountain'

Good husbands generally don't bang other married dudes behind their wives' backs, then blame solely the other dude for their marital problems. That won't stop me from watching this movie in slow motion though.

Photo: IMDB

12. Gregory Anton in 'Gaslight'

Upon learning that his wife Paula is traumatized by her aunt's death, Gregory Anton uproots their family and moves into the same house where said aunt died. Then, he psychologically abuses Paula to the point of her doubting her own sanity ... and coining the term "gaslighting."

13. Lori in 'Total Recall'

14. Frank Bennett in 'Fried Green Tomatoes'

After Ruth escapes from Frank's abuse, he comes back ... and tries stealing their newborn baby. Seems kind of douchey, right?

Photo: YouTube

15. Suzanne in 'To Die For'

Suzanne was so motivated to advance in her career that she hired a gang to murder her husband. To be fair, that was probably much quicker than most divorces.

Photo: IMDB

16. Frank Fitts in 'American Beauty'

Listen, I get it. Repressed homosexuality is hard. I know. But it's no excuse to bully and abuse your wife and kid.

Photo: IMDB

17. Jenny in 'Forrest Gump'

After rejecting Forrest Gump for years and only pretending to give a sh*t when he gets shipped over to Vietnam, Jenny marries him. But only also after seeing him on TV and conveniently saying he's the father of her kid, which is at best anachronistic and at worst opportunistic.

Photo: IMDB

18. Jerry Lundegaard in 'Fargo'

When you're greedy enough to get your wife kidnapped (and, spoiler alert, eventually murdered) in hopes of her dad giving you $100K in ransom, you're probably not that emotionally invested in your marriage.

Photo: IMDB

19. Holly McClane in the 'Die Hard' Series

Holly Gennaro McClane is incredibly ungrateful and disrespectful to estranged (then ex-) husband John McClane throughout the entire Die Hard series, despite him saving her life multiple times, once barefoot. Holly McClane can die hard and go right to Hell.

Photo: IMDB

20. Guy Woodhouse in 'Rosemary's Baby'

Spoilers galore: Guy Woodhouse let Satan rape his wife so she'd give birth to the Anti-Christ and he'd get more acting work, then made her think she was crazy. If you don't think that's grounds for divorce, I don't know how to help you.

Photo: IMDB

After abusing wife Celie in every imaginable way (including isolating her from her beloved sister and making her fix up his gross living conditions and troll kids), Mister Albert moves his mistress into their house and makes Celie her servant. Perhaps the only bigger monster is Celie's stepfather, who gave her away to Mister Albert.